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For 12-year-old Akash, who hails from Dehradun and was begging for alms until last year, education was just a pipe dream.
This dream became a reality when he joined a government school. Last year, the police paternal uncle Register me in this school. They gave me uniforms and books. I got 83.6 per cent in my (annual) exams,” says Akash, who loves to speak English India’s best.
“English and Mathematics are my favorite subjects. I want to be a software engineer when I grow up. I want to be a software engineer when I grow up,” says the fourth grader, whose father works to support his family. Due to the financial crisis, Akash is forced to beg.
Today’s children are the assets of tomorrow. But education—a fundamental right—remains an imaginary fantasy for many downtrodden and poor children who are often driven to beg by their parents. Their dreams were shattered, and thousands meandered their way daily through crowds toward tea shops and markets, across bridges, signals, buses, and trains, begging for alms from every passer-by innocent in their eyes.
Decades after the Children’s Act of 1960 came into effect, child begging continues to be a concern for the country.
Mukti from begging
In a move to rid children of beggary, the Director General of Police (DGP) Uttarakhand launched a special campaign – Operation Mukti in 2017.
Mukti process aims to Mukti (Emancipation) from children’s begging and labour. We need to ensure that their childhood is not destroyed. People think that by giving these children money, they are helping them. In fact, this pushes them more into child begging,” says DGP Ashok Kumar India’s best.
“Don’t beg, don’t know,” he adds. The theme of the campaign is “Don’t Beg, Give Education.”
What prompted Kumar to have an accident when a child was begging in front of the police car, but instead of offering 5 rupees or 10 rupees, the DGP wanted to find a better solution.
“We wanted to help them in an organized way by ending this from the root. Due to lack of education, some children can turn towards crime. Also, having them go to school will stop their tendency to commit crimes. We want them to They connect with the mainstream.”
The campaign, which is the brainchild of the DGP, aims to rehabilitate these children by enrolling them in government schools. Of the more than 4,000 child beggars in the age group of 5 to 15 identified in the hill state, DGP and his team from the Anti-Trafficking Unit have rescued more than half of them from begging in the past five years, he says. Of these, 1,700 are currently in school – learning, playing and envisioning a better future.
For a better tomorrow
Last year, the police registered 19 children between the ages of 6 and 11. They were questioning work or used to collect waste or sell balloons for money. These kids – Neha, Meena, Akash, Karan – are more dedicated to studying than any of the normal kids here. “They have a past, they are young, but they are hungry for education,” says Indu Jyoti, Akash’s teacher.
“These children get a good environment at school. They learn subtraction, multiplication and addition tables, count and learn. With the efforts of the police, these children will be able to work for a better future.”
How difficult is it for these children to adapt to the school environment with typical children? “Since these are very young children, it is not difficult to teach them. In fact, their gripping power is good,” says Jyoti.
Giving the example of Grade 2 student Neha, the teacher says, “You teach her anything once, and she will remember it, whether it is mathematics or English. She is a very smart and bright girl.”
However, it is difficult to educate children who are interested in money, or who are addicted to drugs, she notes. “Even teaching them basic things becomes difficult, even though we spend extra hours to get them comfortable in the school environment.”
Children make up 14 percent of the total beggars in the country, according to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. It is estimated that more than three children across India are forced into begging, using everything from addiction to drugs, threats of violence and actual beatings.
In 99 percent of cases, “we found that children force children to beg because they do not want to work. On average, a child earns 500 rupees per day from begging. This comes to a total of around Rs 15,000 per month. Even the daily bet earns less. So parents become unemployed and make their children beg,” Kumar explains.
Therefore, sustainability becomes cumbersome.
find solutions
“Recognizing these children is easy. Enrolling them and keeping them in schools is difficult. Very often, children leave the schools we enroll them in. Parents forcibly remove them from schools. So we have to make consistent efforts. Through regular follow-up and counseling to parents, We motivate them to work.In the initial phase, the dropout was 50 per cent, and that’s down to twenty per cent now, says the UNDP director.
“Forcing children to beg is a crime, and parents may be imprisoned for that. However, we try to counsel them because if we send them to jail, an innocent child will lose someone who cares for them,” says LDGB. “But that doesn’t mean they can get away with committing the crime over and over again.”
Since sustainability is a challenge, the police also give parents advice and encourage them to take action. Apart from this, they also provide them with the means to earn their living. For example, Asha, a mother of five, was given a sewing machine eight months ago.
My husband passed away four years ago. It was hard for me to support my children’s education. Now with this income, I can take care of my five children — four daughters and one son — and save up to Rs 2,000,” says the 30-year-old.
“My Chanda (9-year-old) and Bhishan (7-year-old) are enrolled in school this year. They have been given uniforms, books, shoes and water bottles. They (the police) have not taken a single penny from us for this. Earlier They used to wander here and there but now they go regularly to school,” says the mother, who would cook lunch for her children, who would come home soon after the school bell rang.
With the help of more than 100 policemen from the government’s anti-trafficking unit, DGP conducts awareness campaigns including organizing nukkad natak (street plays).
We have at least five police officers actively working on this campaign in all thirteen counties of the state. Sometimes the police take a long time to educate these children to make them comfortable when they go to school. “A lot of times children drop out of schools because they find it difficult to adapt to the environment,” says Kumar.
“We are reviewing the progress of the campaign and the work is concentrated in two months during January and February, which is the period prior to the announcement of admission in April. “It takes us about two months to identify these children, advise them and their parents, and enroll them in public schools,” says the one-year-old DGP. 59 years old.
In this campaign, people were also made aware of the need to do their duty by providing education to children and not giving alms. The police do not do this alone. With citizen participation, the police can make this possible. People came to the fore and gave children books and uniforms. Since we do not believe in opening a donation account, the public donates directly to the child. “We don’t receive any financial support,” says Kumar.
“It gives us great joy to see these children go to school. In the next step, we try to track the wonderful children out of these and support their higher education,” concludes DGP.
DGP’s work is also highlighted in a 2022 book titled Best practices in the field of smart police – A book about the good work being done by the police and other police organizations in various states across the country.
Edited by Divya Sethu.
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